


Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps

by stellatundra



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-18 05:11:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5899480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellatundra/pseuds/stellatundra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After his kidnapping ordeal, Baz goes to a magickal bar, deciding he deserves just one night to forget about destiny, numpties and Simon Snow. Simon follows him, convinced he’s up to no good, but is taken by surprise when he sees his roommate kissing another boy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

BAZ

Fiona kept talking in the car on the way here about her school days, sneaking out and going to the pub with her friends, trying not to slur their words when casting spells on the way back after half a dozen pints of snakebite and black. I didn’t know she even had any magical friends, Fiona mostly hangs out with Normals, just to be contrary. Maybe they’ve drifted apart, she’s oddly vague about actual names. Maybe she drank so much snakebite and black she can’t actually remember. 

She seemed slightly disappointed with me when I said I don’t really go out much. As if I have time with school work, hunting for rats in the catacombs and all the spying on the Mage she wants me to do anyway. 

That’s probably why I thought of it, coming out tonight. 

After everything I’ve been through in the last couple of months: the nightmare of being kidnapped compounded by the humiliation of being kidnapped by fucking numpties, having to catch up with half a term’s school work (and by catch up, I mean catch up with Bunce, there’s no way I’m letting her get ahead of me, final year), the last straw is Simon bloody Snow. He’s always watching me, all the time, I don’t get a minute to just breathe.

All I want is one evening of getting absolutely shitfaced, to forget about the numpties and the Humdrum and Simon Snow and his stupid beautiful face and the fact that we’re going to have to kill each other sooner or later. One evening alone.

Well. Maybe not entirely alone. 

The Griffon is a magickal bar. There’s a fairly high concentration of the magickal community in the Watford area. Some people just can’t let go, I suppose. Maybe they feel safer here, near the school, or maybe they’re just gearing up to attack. I don’t know and right at this moment I don’t particularly care, either. I come here because it’s highly unlikely I’ll bump into anyone from school. Dev, Niall and I have occasionally been to the Three Crowns. The Bear and Staff is the favourite haunt of over-eager sixth years who turn a blind eye to the watered down piss that they serve as beer in return for the landlord turning a blind eye to their unconvincing fake IDs. 

It’s a mixed crowd. Pixies, mages, and now a vampire, although I don’t exactly plan to advertise that fact. I order a tequila, and then another. It tastes revolting but it takes the edge off the unremitting angst. Then, out of the corner my eye I notice a guy checking me out. I raise my eyebrow at him then go back to my drink. He comes over. I’m all ready to tell him coolly and in colourful language exactly where he can shove it when I reconsider.

He’s actually good looking. His hair is dark and his eyes a warm brown. Nothing at all like Simon Snow. Only a couple of years older than me, from the looks of him. I don’t remember him from Watford, so he’s either a Normal (unlikely, in this place), or a foreigner. 

“Can I buy you a drink?” he asks.

“Why not,” I say, casual as if I’m in here every night. 

I make it clear I’m not interested in small talk, meeting his gaze challengingly, licking my lips.

Why not, indeed? Why shouldn’t I have this, just for one evening? Everything else is about magic and destiny and Simon bloody Snow and just for once I want something that’s just for me. 

 

SIMON

“Simon, maybe we should just go back,” Penny says, pulling on my arm.

“I need to know what he’s up to,” I tell her. “He’s obviously plotting something. We need to find out why he’s come here, who he’s meeting.”

“Did it ever occur to you that maybe he’s just come for a drink?” Penny says. She sounds ever so slightly out of breath. I suppose I have been marching a little, but we need to trail Baz, find out what he’s plotting this time. 

“Alone?” I say, sceptical.

“Maybe he’s meeting someone.”

“I already said that,” I tell her.

“No, I mean, maybe he’s _meeting someone_.”

For some reason I can’t imagine it. Baz sneaking out of school to meet a girl? Anyway he likes Agatha... doesn’t he? For some reason the idea doesn’t sit right with me. I push open the door, Penny right behind me.

It’s a magickal bar, that much is obvious. It’s dark and dank and my eyes have trouble adjusting to the dim light.

“Let’s get a drink first, act natural,” I suggest.

“Simon, you are aware that saying ‘act natural’ is the least natural thing you could possibly say.”

I ignore her, taking a step towards the bar.

“Um, Simon,” Penny says, tugging my sleeve. I look around, scanning the bar for whatever has made her suddenly anxious. Nobody even seems to have looked up at our entrance. 

Then I see him. 

At first I think he’s feeding on someone, and I start towards them when Penny’s grip tightens around my arm. Then I understand.

Baz. My Baz.

My roommate Baz, I mean. 

Kissing somebody.

Kissing a boy.

I stand stock still, a sudden rush of prickling heat crawling over my skin.

Baz pulls away and his eyes meet mine. For an instant there’s a flicker of something - fear, anger, despair, I don’t know - and then he smirks, an infuriating smirk, and just carries on, diving in for another kiss. 

Penny makes a sound half way between a cough and a harrumph that means, without saying it, I told you so. 

I want to turn and run. 

I don’t think I can move my feet.

Penny pulls me along and orders two pints of lager and a packet of Worcester Sauce crisps. I try not to look at Baz. Baz and the bloke he’s snogging. The _bloke_ he’s _snogging_. 

We find a table and I stare at the packet of crisps Penny’s shoving in my face.

“I’m not hungry,” I tell her. She looks at me, suddenly concerned.

“Simon, you’re always hungry.” Her eyes flick over towards Baz. “Is this about Baz?”

I fold my arms over my chest, suddenly defensive.

“How would you feel if you found out your roommate was gay?” I demand.

“My roommate is gay,” she reminds me, “and as long as I’m not being sexiled from my room when I need to sleep and or study, I have no strong feelings on the topic.”

“But... But...” I can hear myself blustering. Too loud. I lower my voice to a hiss. “But it’s Baz! I’ve been watching him for years. Wouldn’t I know if he was gay?”

“I don’t know,” Penny regards me frankly. “Would you?”

 

BAZ

I have to admit, the slack-jawed shock on Snow’s face is pretty satisfying. But then I can’t get his face out of my head. I’m here, kissing some random guy, while the boy I’ve been in love with for years sits three tables over eating crisps. I wish it was him. I wish. I wish.

We carry on kissing for a while longer, but it’s not just for me, not any more. It’s a performance, just another wind-up-Snow game, and I don’t feel like playing that game any more. Fucking Snow. He ruins everything. I pull back and excuse myself as coldly and politely as I can manage and disappear into the toilets. I lean my head against the wall and swallow hard. Fuck my life. Seriously. 

The door bangs open and it’s Snow, of course it is. 

“Following me again, Snow?” I say with a snarl. 

“Um,” he says, tongue-tied as usual. “I, er...”

“Congratulations,” I say, pushing off the wall and brushing imaginary dirt off the sleeves of my jacket. “All your years of spying have paid off, you’ve finally found something you can use against me. Do hurry back and tell everyone.”

“I wouldn’t,” he says. 

“I don’t care if you do,” I spit, “everyone I care about already knows I’m queer.”

He flinches at that, I don’t know if it’s the word or the fact that he didn’t know, not until tonight. 

“I didn’t... I didn’t know. Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure! How is that the kind of thing you might not be sure about?” He bites his lip and looks down. I want to bite his lip. (I won’t). He’s blushing, a tinge of pink spreading across his cheeks. I smirk at him. “Did you think this was the only time? I come here all the time. Always with different men. Dozens of them.” He blushes harder. I can’t resist. “And don’t think it’s just kissing. Why do you think I was back here? Waiting for my date to come back and fuck me against the wall -”

“Shut up!” he says, angrily. “You’re lying.” 

I am lying. I’ve never even kissed anybody before tonight. How uncharacteristically observant of him. I can feel his magic flaring up, hot and crackling.

I suddenly feel tired of all of this, all these stupid games. I love him and I can’t have him, we’re supposed to hate each other, to kill each other, and all I wanted was just one night to forget about all of that, but here he is, in my space, in my head, in my blood. I shove him. No roommate’s anathema here. 

He skids back, hitting the sink with a dull thud and doubles over. I take a step towards him, needing to know if he’s okay, when he scrambles to his feet and rushes me. He shoves me back, my head whipping back to crack against the tiled wall and then he stops, doesn’t throw a punch or anything, just grips onto my arms hard enough to bruise and glares, simmering. Close enough to kiss.

“Go home, Snow,” I say wearily, not meeting his eyes. “Bunce is probably wondering what’s happened to you.”

“Baz,” he says, softly, carefully, concerned, “are you...” I cut him off. I can’t let him ask if I’m okay. My defences are lowered enough that I just might tell him the truth.

“Just fuck off,” I say. “Please.”

And he does.


	2. Chapter 2

SIMON

I can’t stop thinking about it. Baz and that bloke from the pub, I don’t know his name, don’t _want_ to know his name. I wonder if Baz even knew it. Was that his boyfriend? Or just some guy he picked up in the bar?

I know he was lying when he said he did it all the time, when he said he... I know he was lying. He had to be. Right? 

If he was his boyfriend, would he invite him back here? What if they wanted to come back here to our room and sit on Baz’s bed and kiss? What if they wanted to do more than kiss?

I can’t stop picturing it.

What if he wasn’t lying?

 

BAZ

Fuck my life. Seriously.

 

SIMON

I follow Baz the next few nights. The first night he feeds. The next he goes to the library to study. I fall asleep while pretending to be reading a book but he’s back in our room, fast asleep, when I get there. I lose track of him the third night in the catacombs, and the fourth night he feeds again. 

I wonder if he knows I’m following him. We don’t really talk to each other at all, but he catches me looking at him a couple of times. And I’m not just wondering about his nefarious plans, either, I’m thinking about him kissing that boy. I’m thinking about whether he really likes kissing boys, whether that boy really liked kissing Baz. Does it feel different, kissing boys to kissing girls? Has Baz ever kissed a girl?

Penny refuses to help me. She says that being obsessed with my roommate’s love life goes beyond Sensible Vigilance in the Face of Evil and all the way into Crazed Stalker. 

“Honestly, Simon,” she says, exasperated, “if you’re that bothered about who Baz is snogging you might as well -” She stops suddenly and rolls her eyes upwards. “Oh dear Morgana!” she says, in the tone of voice she gets when she’s finally solved a difficult mathemagical problem and acts as if it should have been obvious all along, while the rest of us are still floundering helplessly.

“So are you coming, then? To the pub?” I press, ignoring her strange exclamation, but she shakes her head.

“Some things, Simon,” she says (somewhat condescendingly, if I’m honest), “you just have to figure out by yourself.”

 

Baz gives me the slip after dinner, sneaking out while I’m distracted by the trifle, but I go to that bar again and there he is, sitting in the corner. Alone, this time.

“Snow,” he says, looking up when I slide into the chair opposite him.

“Baz. Are you drunk?”

“I am drinking, Snow, I am not drunk. There is a difference. Drinking is the journey, drunk is the destination.” He takes a long sip from his glass. “What are you doing here?”

I can’t really answer that question. I’m not sure what I’m doing here. 

“As your roommate,” I say, “It’s my job to look out for you.”

He gives that answer the disbelieving snort it probably deserves.

“It really isn’t. Anyway, what exactly are you planning to save me from? Having a good time?”

“Were you?” I ask, before I can think it through. “Having a good time, I mean. Last time.”

“I was until you showed up.” It’s not said with his usual snark. There’s a sort of weary honesty to his answer that gives me a sharp tug in my belly that might just be sympathy. It occurs to me then, probably for the first time, that I care about Baz. He might be my sworn enemy, but he’s my sworn enemy. Nobody gets to hurt him but me. 

“It’s just... If anyone was taking advantage of you...”

His eyebrows migrate upwards to his hairline, incredulous.

“Do you honestly think I’d let anyone take advantage of me?” I have to admit it seems unlikely, but ever since he finally came back to school, after being missing for all that time, there’s been something ever so slightly vulnerable in his eyes. I think something or someone hurt him and it makes me itch with rage and powerlessness. “Snow, I’m nearly nineteen. If I want to come to the pub, or if I want to kiss someone, or even get laid, I am perfectly within my rights to do it. That’s what normal people do.”

“But we’re not Normal,” I protest. I wonder if this is what it’s about, really. I don’t want us to grow up. Not even Baz. Because that means it’s all going to end. We’re running out of time.

“Maybe I just want to pretend,” he shrugs. 

“Alright then,” I say. “Let’s pretend.”

 

BAZ

Snow orders a half pint, which is ridiculous, only a die-hard shiny-haired hero would sit in a dive bar like this nursing a half pint. And an equally ridiculous packet of crisps, which he’s shoveling into his mouth like someone who didn’t have second helpings of trifle only an hour ago. I don’t know what he’s doing here. I don’t know what I’m still doing here. Sitting across from each other like a couple of Normals on a night out. 

Or a date.

My skin flushes with the blood from the squirrel I drained earlier.

I really wish I hadn’t thought of it like that. 

 

SIMON

I suppose it is kind of nice, to pretend. Pretend that I’m just a boy, not the Chosen One, not the Mage’s Heir. 

That he’s just a boy, not a vampire, not a nemesis. 

Just a boy. 

 

BAZ

OK, so it’s not a date. But maybe a truce. We don’t really talk, just drink our drinks in vaguely non-threatening silence. Which is... nice.

Then that bloke comes over, the one from last week. I can’t even remember his name. Vic? Victor? Vikram? He stops at our table, looming over us. 

“Hey gorgeous,” he says to me. Nobody’s ever spoken to me like that before. I don’t know if I like it. I think I’d like it if Snow said it. (Like that would ever happen). “What happened to you the other night?”

Snow rustles his crisp packet obnoxiously and Vic (if that really is his name) looks over at him. Snow is glaring at him like he’s the Humdrum himself for some reason. Vic holds up his hands.

“Sorry mate, I didn’t know,” he says, and beats a hasty retreat. I feel a rush of blood to my head. Now it’s my turn to glare. 

“You idiot,” I say, rounding on Snow. “Now he thinks we’re - aargh!” I throw up my hands, getting to my feet too quickly and knocking the table. My drink spills and sloshes all over the place, pouring itself into Snow’s lap. He gives an undignified yelp which under other circumstances I might have found amusing, but I’m too angry and frustrated to enjoy it. 

It’s bad enough that I’m hopelessly in love with him and he’ll never be interested in me, now he has to ruin my chances with anyone else as well. 

(Even if I don’t want anyone else, not really). 

“I hate you,” I tell him. It’s the biggest lie I’ve ever told. 

I stalk out, shoulders set, trying to recover a few shreds of dignity.

 

Simon Snow follows me. Of course he does.

“Hey, Baz, wait, I...” He catches me by the shoulder. I turn to him, fangs bared and he blinks, surprised.

“Leave me alone.”

“No!”

I stop dead. He grabs my arm and steers me into the alley by the side of the pub. Obviously he never read the Chosen One’s manual, chapter 3.1 - never go into a dark alley with your arch nemesis. 

He’s still touching me, holding on to my arm like I might vanish any minute. I wish he wouldn’t, I can’t think. (I wish he wouldn’t stop)(thinking is overrated anyway). He gives me a searching look and I try to look away but I can’t, which isn’t fair. I’m the vampire, I should be the one able to mesmerise my prey, not Snow.

I feel myself sway slightly, leaning in to him. I don’t know why I haven’t shoved him away. 

This is why I don’t drink. Or, this is why I don’t let Simon Snow get close to me. Because when he does, he gets really close, under my skin, and dismantles all of my defences. And it hurts. 

 

SIMON

I’ve seen Baz angry before, and I’ve seen him hurt, but I’ve never seen him quite this defeated.

I don’t want to leave him alone, he was gone too long, leaving me alone. 

I just don’t know what to say, how to reach him. _Use your words, Simon._

If only I could think of the right words.

He’s so close. (Close enough to kiss). 

“You win,” he says, blinking and looking away.

“No,” I say again. I don’t want to win, because that would mean it was over. I shift my hand from his arm to grab the front of his shirt.

And I kiss him.

 

BAZ

His tongue is in my mouth, hot and wet and tasting vaguely of Worcester sauce.

I’m glad this isn’t my first kiss, that I got some practice the other night so I don’t totally disgrace myself. (But I wish he was my first, all the same). 

His hand is twisted in the material of my shirt (he has no respect for good clothes) and one of mine is tangled in his hair.

It’s easy to forget about everything: the war, the Mage, the numpties, even the fact that we’re standing out on the street in the cold. I don’t think I could bring myself to stop kissing him long enough to **“nothing to see here”** us.

I feel giddy, and it isn’t the drink - I only had two pints, anyway, and most of the second one ended up all over Snow. 

“What are you doing?” I gasp, because I’m my own worst enemy sometimes. I don’t know why I can’t just shut up and enjoy it. He’s breathing hard and doesn’t answer right away. I realise that the only word he’s said since he caught up with me is ‘no’. (I’ve had elaborate fantasies in which Snow only says ‘yes’, with maybe the occasional ‘please’ or ‘harder’ thrown in).

“I don’t know,” he says, leaning his forehead against mine. 

It’s not exactly illuminating but at least it’s honest, and that’s good enough for me at this point. I find his mouth again, feeling like I’m finally getting the hang of the whole kissing thing. He pulls my bottom lip between his teeth and I shiver all over. I want to do the same to him but I don’t dare, just in case I bite, so I settle for kissing along his jaw all the way to his ear, marking each spot I kiss, a whole series of firsts. 

Even in the half-dark I can see that he’s blushing. I wonder if he’s embarrassed. I’m not. I’ve had years to adjust to the situation of pining for my sworn enemy, I’m way beyond embarrassment at this point. 

“Last week,” he says, “when I saw you... I couldn’t stop thinking about it. You. Your lips. Kissing you.”

Crowley, if I’d known that was all it would take, I’d have snogged half of our class in front of him long ago. 

“You’re all I think about,” I tell him. “All the time. Always.” It’s more than I mean to give away. Like my tongue has a life of its own (it’s certainly been busy, recently). I feel like someone’s cast **“honesty is the best policy”** on me. 

He kisses me breathless, kisses me careless, kisses me stupid. I pull him closer, the whole length of his body crushed against mine. 

“Did you mean what you said, last week?” he asks, all in a rush.

“Specifics, Snow,” I tell him. I’ve said a lot of things to him, I can’t have meant more than half of them. 

“In the pub. When we were in the bathroom. You said you were waiting for your date. Waiting for him to...” he trails off. He can’t even say it. I wonder if he and Agatha...I don’t want to think about him and Agatha. 

“To fuck me, you mean?” I say. I lean in close to his ear and make my voice low and I’m rewarded by feeling him shiver against me.

“Yeah. Yes. That.”

“No. I’ve never.” It occurs to me that maybe, just maybe, Snow was jealous when he almost went off at me that other night. I think about telling him that I’d let him, only him, but it feels like too much, too soon. You’ve got to keep some cards back, after all. 

“Good,” he says, and I don’t think I’m imagining the proprietorial tone to his voice, or the way his hand drifts down to rest against the small of my back. Snow shivers again, but I think maybe it’s with cold this time. “Hey, Baz?”

“Yeah?” I ask, heart pounding.

“Can we go back now? I’m soaked through with beer and it’s bloody cold.”

I stifle a smile against his shoulder.

“Yeah,” I say. “Come on, let’s go home.”

He holds my hand the whole way.


End file.
